Singapore — People’s Voice (PV) presented their speech for the Constituency Political Broadcast for Jalan Besar GRC on July 5. PV Secretary-General Lim Tean spoke for the entire duration of the broadcast, as the total time per team contesting in GRCs can be allocated in any way.
Mr Lim’s Jalan Besar campaign revolved around several major issues in Singapore including inequality, but more notably, about PV’s perceived failure of the government’s COVID-19 management.
Another issue taken up by Mr Lim was the number of jobs taken by foreigners in Singapore “at the expense of Singaporeans”. He gave an analogy of a bad father, likening the government to a father who allows “an alien child to come into the family, and neglect his own children”.
Furthermore, Mr Lim highlighted that the government was previously “hurtling towards a 10 million population” regardless of the adamant denial of the People’s Action Party (PAP) in recent days. He added that the government would not have buckled and denied aiming for a 10 million population if it was not for PV and the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP).
On the issue of COVID-19, Mr Lim suggested that if COVID-19 had been a bio-weapon, as the rumours circulating around in the earlier stage of the pandemic said it was, “Singaporeans would not have stood a chance with this bunch of 4G leaders”.
He went on to take a shot at Josephine Teo, the anchoring minister of the PAP’s Jalan Besar GRC team, declaring that Ms Teo was “singularly responsible” for the major spike in COVID-19 cases in the foreign worker dormitories.
Mr Lim stressed that when cases first started appearing in the dormitories, Ms Teo should have known of the dangers posed by densely packed dormitories. “She either did not care, or she was careless,” he continued.
Mr Lim then went on to bring up Ms Teo’s previous statement that inequality in Singapore is a “problem of success”. Ms Teo had said this at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) 30th anniversary conference, in response to a question posed by diplomat Tommy Koh who asked about how Singapore turned out to have such a large number of people who are poor.
Raising the fact that cleaners who stay in Jalan Besar earn an average of S$1,200 a month and contrasting that to the Prime Minister’s salary, which is S$2.2 million, Mr Lim said that this is “inequality on an obscene scale”.
Additionally, Mr Lim went on to appeal to voters to use their vote as a “referendum on Josephine Teo’s competence and leadership”.
Rounding up the speech, Mr Lim introduced the three other candidates in his team and said “We ask for nothing to serve you. We only ask for the chance to serve.”